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Who Dey Revolution Manifesto

Preamble

IN THIS TIME of perpetual Cincinnati Bengals incompetence and futility, with zero playoff wins in the nineteen seasons since the WhoDeyRevolution Godfather, Paul Brown, passed away in 1991 and handed the team to his fortunate son, the Despot, Mike Brown;

Introduction

WE, the members of the Who Dey Revolution, in our fervent dedication to the Cincinnati Bengals and fanatical desire to transform our hometown team into perpetual Super Bowl contenders, call for a popular revolution of fans to demand comprehensive reform to the managerial decisions and approach of Cincinnati Bengals ownership, management, staff and players, and hereby call for the adoption of the following Who Dey Revolution Manifesto:

Manifesto Demands

THAT the Mike Brown, Katie Blackburn, Marvin Lewis, along with every other member of the Bengals management, staff and personnel, state publicly to all Bengals fans, “I will do everything in my power to help the Cincinnati Bengals win a Super Bowl;”

THAT Mike Brown will hire a general manager, drastically expand the scouting department and relinquish all control of player personnel;

THAT all training, rehabilitation and medical facilities are considered best-in-class compared to other NFL teams;

THAT the management fill the team only with players who fit the system, both mentally and physically, and are not reluctant to makes changes to player personnel when needed, regardless of cost or loyalty concerns;

THAT offensive and defensive line depth is considered the top priority for all player personnel decisions;

THAT all decisions made by ownership, management, staff and players, both on and off the field, are judged only by this criterion: “Does this help the Cincinnati Bengals win a Super Bowl?”

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April 20, 2010

Beware Jason Pierre-Paul

I regard the combine as mostly a creepy experience where grown men intensely stare at college kids wearing really tight clothing. However, it turns out perhaps the shuttle run and vertical leap are not wholly useless, at least, when evaluating edge pass rushers.

Behold, another Football Outsiders article, where they unveil their "SackSEER" formula used to evaluate the pro potential of "edge" pass rushers. It's basically a 4 part formula because after running a regression the dude who did the research found that 4 factors were the strongest at predicting NFL performance. The factors are:

Short Shuttle time

Vertical Leap

Sacks per game in college

Total missed games when eligible to play (injuries)

Anyway, I write about this because if my beloved offensive line prospects are not there, I would be satisfied with an edge rusher. I'm sure others feel differently, but our pass rush still strikes me as underwhelming, and I don't know if we'll have JJ & Leon around forever to make it less obvious just how underwhelming it is.

How good is SackSEER? Well, FO lists some players SackSEER would have ranked highly in the past (since 1999) and also those they would have ranked lowly. It's pretty effective based on those lists. You can check that out for yourself. For our purposes, we want to know what it says about the draft this year.

So here's how this formula ranks the current prospects:

Jerry Hughes, TCU

Derrick Morgan, Georgia Tech

Everson Griffen, USC

Brandon Graham, Michigan

Sergio Kindle, UT

Carlos Dunlap, Florida

Jason Pierre-Paul, South Florida

As for the top prospects, not a whole lot stands out (maybe Sergio is overrated a little) except for one: Jason Pierre-Paul, who is getting tons of hype by draft gurus. Here's what FO has to say:

This projection is not a misprint. Although Pierre-Paul is widely regarded as one of the top edge rushers by draftniks, it is hard to conceive of a prospect that SackSEER would like less.

Is it fair to say that Pierre-Paul 26 missed games because he spent his first two years in junior college? Yes, because the few recent edge rusher prospects with junior college experience were among the worst defensive draft picks in recent memory. The illustrious list includes Anton Palepoi, Jerome McDougle, Tony Bryant, Lamar King, Erik Flowers, Michael Boireau and most recently, David Veikune, Cleveland's 2009 second-round pick, who did not record a sack as a rookie and was inactive for much of the season.

However, even if we removed the missed games adjustment, Pierre-Paul would still have the worst projection in this class. Although Pierre-Paul's "handflips" video has earned him the distinction as the 2010 NFL Draft's consummate physical "freak," he put up poor numbers in all of the workout metrics that matter to SackSEER. This is certainly not the first time that similar "gimmicky" athleticism has not translated into workout numbers. For instance, just last year, San Diego State defensive lineman Jarron Gilbert made waves (pardon the pun) with a widely circulated video depicting Gilbert jumping out of a swimming pool flat footed. Despite his aquatic jumping ability, Gilbert only registered a 35.5-inch vertical leap at the Combine.

The ability of Pierre-Paul to translate his particular brand of athleticism to pass rushing success is speculative at best. Overall, the general manager who pulls the trigger on Pierre-Paul better be very confident that he has something special -- so special that it will completely buck the historical trends.

Yikes. Sounds like he's not worth the risk with a first round pick. Anyway, let's stay away from him please.

Comments

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Love the analysis. I am not a big fan of everson griffin but maybe he is worth the pick. Geathers is average at best. Odom is coming off serious injury. Johnson is unproven. Let me come out and say it though, I am a big fanene fan.

If guys not working in football can come up with solid statistics, why can't the Bengals? Oh, that's right, because MFB gets the first pick. And like Al Davis, he just goes with whomever gets him all twitterpated. ("I can screw over his agent. Draft him!")